dec-24-st-peters.md

Sat. Dec. 24, 2016: St. Peter’s

1: the people have seen a great light

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14: the grace of God has appeared
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
Psalm 96

lectionary

History of Christmas:

How is it that we find ourselves in the night-time of the year, celebrating the nativity of Jesus?

How it got to be Dec. 25th

At the founding of our country – very little attention paid by the Puritans. (One of the scandals of the “Anglicans” was their observance of Christmas

Much of what we observe today a product of the commercial and business interests of the 19^th / 20^th century

Each of us here tonight carries memories of our local and family traditions. (I asked a clerk at Publix the other day whether she was going to be spending time with little family or big family – she immediately knew what I was talking about. Her big family is in Georgia and they hoped to get there next month, but this weekend it is a quiet time together with the local family.)

by the 4^th c. a cluster of references to one of 2 dates: Dec. 25 & Jan 6. (the latter is the time in which Orthodox Christmas is observed) A major Anglican liturgical scholar was one of the first to advocate for an argument that the dates chosen for Jesus’ birth are actually related to the date at which it was calculated he was conceived which was assumed to be related to the time he died.

Christmas is old – but Easter goes back to the origins of Christianity

Challenge of preaching on such a day:

Often I sense that the emotions of the day/night are more powerful than anything I can bring

I don’t carry memories of great sermons that I might have heard, trying to copy elements of them to make this a memorable sermon.

There aren’t readily at hand by “googling” a lot of Christmas sermons that have stood the test of time. I found a couple, from Martin Luther, Lancelot Andrewes, Aelred of Rievaulx.

Classic Christmas movies, on the other hand, come readily to mind.

They have characteristics like: happy ending, generosity prevails, while catastrophe seems to be pending rescue wins in the end – some of the themes I have tried to draw out of Isaiah these past 4 weeks.

• It’s a wonderful life
• A Christmas story
• Miracle on 34^th st
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Home Alone
• White Christmas

And of course there’s the whole raft of “classic” music – some of which we try to sing tonight.

(I am reminded of something a wise person said to me many years ago that the thing people are most attached to in the traditions of the church is the music.)

This year the meaning of Christmas has come to me in song and film

Insight from Oh, God

• Told my mother that it’s the movie where God looks like George Burns – thinking that she might recognize the image from her younger days
• he makes appearance in a form and language we can understand
• he chooses messengers who are quite ordinary
• what do we do when he shows up – expecting change in our behavior
• He’s not happy with the way things are going: violence, killing, environment, …

cf. song: What if God

Lyrics:

What if God was one of us? / Just a slob like one of us / Just a stranger on the bus / Tryin’ to make his way home?… Joan Osborne

If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with Him in all His glory
What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great
Yeah, yeah, God is good
And yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

• The song deals with various aspects of belief in God by asking questions inviting the listener to consider how they might relate to God, such as “Would you call [God’s name] to his face?” or “Would you want to see [God’s face] if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?” Wikipedia

The song we have sung during Advent by Mary Haugen has given me a new insight about Christmas. It is that in particular that I want to share tonight.

He had us singing that we would “choose to believe a little child will lead us” … that “Immanuel is within us and God dwells within us always” if we let our hearts see what is true.

• I made the connection for the first time between the focus on a babe (in the manger) and Jesus’ admonition that we must be like little children to enter (participate in) the kingdom

A child to lead us

What is this child-likeness? What might it look like?

• Like a child:
  • Like children in the wonder that we bring
  • Like children in the anticipation of good things
  • Like children in the confidence that “All manner of things shall be well.”
  • Like children in the flexibility to be at home anywhere
  • Like children in being able to see the spiritual world in this world – the spiritual made manifest, the divine incarnate – basic Christmas stuff.
  • I have seen it on the faces of many children who end up being caught up in stories – believing every word, living the world brought forth
  • I have seen it in the eyes of children receiving communion – they don’t “believe” that God is there – they know it!
• It is:
  • trust
  • acceptance of life and death, and all in between
  • it is where each of us begins and ends our life – all the grown up stuff is … ?
  • I saw it in the faces of children in homeless shelters as a librarian from Jamaica read them stories – the lights, glitter, and fascination were not imaginary
  • Clearly it is in the faces of children all over the place at Christmas time – at it’s best

Most of all I thought, “Yes, that’s what Jesus was telling us.” The Gospel is really about that 3^rd verse from Haugen’s song. If we’re going to see Immanuel, we’re going to have to look with the eyes of a child. To be like little children.

The gospels tell us that. Paul writes about it.

• Mark 10:15
  • ^13-16 The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.
• Ephesians 5:1-2
  • 5 ^1-2 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
• Luke 18:16
  • ^15-17 People brought babies to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off. Jesus called them back. “Let these children alone. Don’t get between them and me. These children are the kingdom’s pride and joy. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.”
• When I try to imagine the kingdom God is calling us to – I don’t imagine it populated with grown adults. It’s not about responsibility, taking care of others, working hard, saving up for a rainy day. Those are good things and most of us, after all, spend most of our lives being grown-ups.

But when I imagine the Kingdom of God,

• it’s about other sorts of things, things more easily associated with children:
  • wonder
  • creativity
  • enthusiasm
  • a sparkle in the eye – as if to reflect God peeking through
• So tonight, carry with you a Christmas blessing, marked with a child-like awareness of the nearness of God (Immanuel), let your heart learn to see and believe and rejoice, that we are led by a child. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness. His name is Jesus.

Christmas Season Blessing

May Almighty God, who sent his Son to take our nature upon him, bless you in this holy season, scatter the darkness of sin, and brighten your heart with the light of his holiness. Amen.

May God, who sent his angels to proclaim the glad news of the Savior’s birth, fill you with joy, and make you heralds of the Gospel. Amen.

May God, who in the Word made flesh joined heaven to earth and earth to heaven, give you his peace and favor. Amen.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen.

or this

May Christ, who by his Incarnation gathered into one things earthly and heavenly, fill you with his joy and peace; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.

advent4-dec-18

Sun, Dec 18, 2016: St. Peter’s

Sermon Fourth Advent

The strange circumstances of King Ahaz

Bible Study and
lectionary

In our reading from Isaiah this week, God responds with as it were a sigh of exasperation at King Ahaz who says in a voice of mock piety, "Nah, I don’t need a sign from you. I’m doing just fine. To which God (the Lord) says, “Well, I’m going to give you one anyway. A young woman is with child. And his name will be Immanuel.”

That’s not particularly remarkable we can observe, except perhaps the name which means “God is with you.”

But then if we add some of the back story to the short reading it all just seems even weirder – at least to me.

You see Ahaz is being attacked from an alliance of the northern kingdom and Syria (“2 kings” from the reading). God has promised to rescue King Ahaz from the predicament. But Ahaz thinks he can do just fine without God’s help so he makes the response we have heard today.

The text as we all know was used by the writers of the New Testament as an anticipation of the coming of Christ. I am interested for the moment, however, in the perplexing sort of way that God (through Isaiah’s words) gives Judah a vision of hope in a time of great danger and intrigue.

• opening of Romans
• Matthew, birth of Messiah

A clear theme from these past weeks

This man, a prophet, named Isaiah? A man so much of his own time and speaking God’s message to his own time. But his intimacy with God gives him a heart to see a time that is not yet real but that in God’s time will be.

• Be a people of peace.
• Be a people of justice
• Be a people of mercy

These were words that we heard at the conclusion of the message 3 weeks ago.

We began to learn a song … choose to hope, love. Love is greater than hatred.

We are sisters and brothers. We share the same story.

One way to understand the word of God in the Bible we call scriptures is to say that we recognize ourselves in the stories we hear. It is we ourselves in these prophecies. God’s message transcends time.

Last week we heard a phrase that we can use to think of the kind of time that we live in. A time that may appear broken, even evil times, but – we live in an already but not yet world.

The world around us is broken, violent, full of injustice and lack of mercy – but – we have a foot in a new land.

I have a particular image that I think in this already but not yet space. It is like the mixing together of the divine and the human. It is the meeting of God and mortal. An old Celtic image thinks of the shore where land and sea meet, waves crashing and mixing with the sand. If the Ocean is the divine world and the shore is the human world, at that point they are mixed together.

This leads to another similar image from a similar environment. If at one moment we are floating in a boat, on a lake or a river. Then we reach our leg over the side and we step onto the muddy ground. One moment floating. The next moment standing on secure earth.

So perhaps is the mystery of the already but not yet that we must live out our lives of faith, hope and love.

Image of William McNamara Earthy Mysticism

I once saw an Old Testament prophet. I have thought ever since through the decades that time had somehow melted for me in a church auditorium in Pueblo Colorado. I didn’t who the speaker was, but my priest had thought I might enjoy it so I accompanied him. His name was William McNamara.

He was introduced by a priest, possibly a bishop, I’m not sure, but a giant of a man walked up to the microphone. He had a long beard and a cassock that reached to the floor. All you really saw was wild hair growing from his head and long flowing robes. Then he spoke. He spoke with a boom. And somehow it was as authoritative as if God himself were speaking. At the time I thought, "So that’s what the people meant when they heard Jesus speak and said that he spoke with authority. web site

I learned from his talk that he was a hermit-monk and had founded several monastic communities of hermits – interestingly they were founded as combined men/women communities. I learned that he had just written a book titled Mystical Passion.

He talked about contemplative prayer that was meant for everybody, all kinds of people. Later I would learn that Thomas Merton said much the same thing. He said things like prayer needs to be grounded in the real nitty gritty of the life we live. It needs to be grounded in what he called an earthy mysticism.

I was utterly captivated by him and his writings helped me get through seminary. A time of a lot of nitty gritty somehow sandwiched with a lot of prayer.

Building on a lifetime of teaching that his “earthy mysticism” was for all Christians, McNamara produced many guides for folks trying to be faithful in difficult times. One such guide is:

Rule of Life from: earth mysticism

What to do?
Everyone — all lay people, students, workers, homemakers, even beach bums — needs a Rule. Try this:

1. Wake up and fall on your knees — ten minutes of prayer. Put your stamp on the day with God’s help. Read a gospel or a psalm.
2. Live mindfully all day. No compulsions. No frenzy. No trivialities. Joy in everything. Make something, love, especially.
3. Angelus at noon. Stop!
4. On the way home — stop in church, in a park, a favorite spot. Do something wild every day, i.e., break the moribund daily pattern and imitate Christ – the Wildman.
5. Glad, loving entry at home — share something you noticed that day; then music, laughter, and good food.
6. Visit the sick, the poor, aged, children and animals. Play. Walk. Run.
7. One half hour of meditative reading leading to quiet prayer. Go out or to bed peacefully.

obituary and summary: obituary

Message of the song: “learn to believe a little child will lead us”

I, at least, have been learning to find a way this Advent with the help of the song we have been learning from Marty Haugen.

• we have a choice in what to believe, “that love is stronger than hatred.”
• if our hearts learn to see that we all share the same story, love can shine.
• and finally that we can recognize that we are to be led by one who is a “little child.”

That is where we find ourselves at this time. We must prepare ourselves for living into the vision: the Peaceable Kingdom under the leadership of a child. What a strange journey we are faced with?

advent3-dec-11.md

Sermon Third Advent:

Dec. 11, 2016

lectionary

• a highway there (Isaiah some more)
• ransomed of the LORD break out in song
• possible use of Magnificat
• James “be patient” til the coming of the Lord
• John the Baptist – see I’m sending my messenger ahead to prepare the way

In previous Sundays I focused on the readings from the prophet Isaiah in an attempt to hear an Advent message in a fresh light.

Isaiah has looked out at his own country and seen a leadership made impotent by rampant injustice and a failure to reflect the deeper values of the people of Israel. In spite of expecting destruction from the legacy of these leadership problems, Isaiah brings a message from God that inspires hope and expectation in a time to come.

Advent is a time of preparation for a time to come. In the Orthodox church it is a period of self-reflection and self-examination that lasts 40 days – mirroring the time of preparation in Lent. It is a time to be taken seriously. Perhaps it is a time to take time seriously.

In today’s world we have mostly lost the sense of urgency that was at the heart of Advent preparation. There is after all a sense that it is a time of preparation for Christmas. For the past 150 years or so Christmas has come to be a business model, a family gathering time, a nostalgic interlude. It was not such prior to the 19th c.

The word advent has to do with “coming”, “approach”, something off in the future that is approaching. In our morning prayer time of 2 weeks ago we read a reflection that associated the word “adventure” with “Advent.” I was startled because I hadn’t ever really recognized that before, but it’s obvious. I looked up some definitions of “adventure” and found there to be quite a variety of nuances to the word, a verb as well as a noun, but the general sense builds on a meaning of something about to happen. There are adventurers and one can “adventure” in a gamble or a risk, e.g. of one’s money. Our youngest daughter used to get excited when we were headed for a trip somewhere. She would think of it as an “adventure” (I think I may have started it, actually) but she couldn’t say the word accurately. She would say, "We’re going to go on a “venture”.

I used to just think it was cute. Now I think there was insight in her small mispronunciation. In Advent we prepare for an adventure with God made manifest (incarnated) into our lives and life of our world. We will never be able to truly encounter that “God made manifest” unless we venture forth. With courage and anticipation, like we were children on our way to a park or a picnic.

Middle English: from Old French aventure (noun), aventurer (verb), based on Latin adventurus ‘about to happen,’ from advenire ‘arrive.’

Every step of the way on that adventure, God’s message for us is to proceed with expectation, longing, waiting, preparing. It is looking forward to what we may not be able to really see with any clarity. It might be counter-intuitive, but we venture forth anyway.

Christian life built on “Already but not yet”

Our lives as faithful Christians is built on such a prophetic vantage point. It is founded on seeing something that is already accomplished but perhaps not yet visible. Already but not yet.

It is accomplished – we must continually work & prepare for the day to come. The coming days, the redemption, the crooked paths made straight, is all done through God’s work. But as Bp. Tutu reminded us a couple of weeks ago, “God has made us responsible for his reputation.”

We are his instruments. We are the ones to prepare the way for the Lord. We are God’s hands and God’s feet. We are God’s heart in a world gone cold.

In the words of the often-quoted story:

God Will Save Me (many versions of this over-quoted story)

A terrible storm came into a town and local officials sent out an emergency warning that the riverbanks would soon overflow and flood the nearby homes. They ordered everyone in the town to evacuate immediately.

A faithful Christian man heard the warning and decided to stay, saying to himself, “I will trust God and if I am in danger, then God will send a divine miracle to save me.”

The neighbors came by his house and said to him, “We’re leaving and there is room for you in our car, please come with us!” But the man declined. “I have faith that God will save me.”

As the man stood on his porch watching the water rise up the steps, a man in a canoe paddled by and called to him, “Hurry and come into my canoe, the waters are rising quickly!” But the man again said, “No thanks, God will save me.”

The floodwaters rose higher pouring water into his living room and the man had to retreat to the second floor. A police motorboat came by and saw him at the window. “We will come up and rescue you!” they shouted. But the man refused, waving them off saying, “Use your time to save someone else! I have faith that God will save me!”

The flood waters rose higher and higher and the man had to climb up to his rooftop.

A helicopter spotted him and dropped a rope ladder. A rescue officer came down the ladder and pleaded with the man, “Grab my hand and I will pull you up!” But the man STILL refused, folding his arms tightly to his body. “No thank you! God will save me!”

Shortly after, the house broke up and the floodwaters swept the man away and he drowned.

When in Heaven, the man stood before God and asked, “I put all of my faith in You. Why didn’t You come and save me?”

And God said, “Son, I sent you a warning. I sent you a car. I sent you a canoe. I sent you a motorboat. I sent you a helicopter. What more were you looking for?”

Advent is for preparing but not for Christmas – not for the birth of the Christ child (that already happened)
Advent is about preparing for the new world that has already been accomplished but not yet.
It entails continuing to do our part to usher in that day – even though it is God’s kingdom and God’s doing
The old story about waiting for God to deliver (as rescuer comes)

Gaudete Sunday (Leave out?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete_Sunday – this the 3rd Sunday of this Adventure we call Advent.

The day takes its common name from the Latin word Gaudete (“Rejoice”), the first word of the introit of this day’s Mass:[1]

Pink Candle

• The spirit of the Liturgy all through Advent is one of expectation and preparation for the feast of Christmas as well as for the second coming of Christ, and the penitential exercises suitable to that spirit are thus on Gaudete Sunday suspended, as were, for a while in order to symbolize that joy and gladness in the promised Redemption.[1] (Wikipedia)
• While the theme of Advent is a focus on the coming of Jesus in three ways: His first, His present and His final Advent,[2]

Isaiah: His deliverance of God’s message, good news,

Isaiah:

• blind shall see etc.
• they shall see the glory of the Lord
• desert shall bloom
• the ransomed of the Lord shall return

Collapse of ½ the country

• Sennacherib knocking on Jerus’ gates
• Isaiah’s word helped Hezekiah to strike a bargain with Sennacherib
• bought 100 years of semi-independence

setting Hezekiah (next chapter) – will he be the one to save Israel?

text anticipates a coming time of harmony

cp. Is 40.3 & Mal 3.1 preparing the way

Isaiah message is a vision looking out at some kind of new day

Isaiah spoke God’s message of a coming time of peace and redemption, crooked ways made straight, for his own time. He looked out at the Assyrian Sennacherib’s threat to Israel and he saw in it not so much the approaching doom that it anticipated. Rather he saw God’s redemption being fulfilled.

In much the same way, John the Baptist looked at the trying times of Herod’s court and the self-destructive ways of the people of his time and he didn’t so much see the doom – a doom that was surely coming. He saw God’s redemption being made manifest, being incarnated, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

And so it is that we are challenged by God’s word in our own day. We may look around us and see the evil, self-destructive forces, agents of God’s judgment on our world. But the prophetic word for us is to see instead the victory of hope and love.

We can hear an echo of that tri-partite redemption of time in the “proclamation of faith” in our Eucharistic Prayer “A”.

Christ has come. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Matthew: today’s reading

In today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew, we hear about debates and wonderings at the time of Jesus. Who was the one to come? Who was the expected one?

The people lived in such a power-packed Advent time. They were filled with expectation for some new thing to be done by God in their midst.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus told the crowds about John that he was the one that Isaiah had talked about so many centuries before.

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

Jesus told the people that the prophetic word was that we must prepare the way for God’s redemption which was on its way.

Is he the one? i.e. Hezekiah? John Bapt?

No! this is not the one. They are all agents of God’s work. But you my people are to be agents of God’s redemption, God’s love and hope for the world.

That is Isaiah’s task as a prophet, an agent of God’s word.

It is is ours as well.

Benedictus Dominus identification

I have for a long time identified with the closing words of the Benedictus Dominus – the canticle for Morning Prayer. They are from the gospel according to Luke, but echo the words of Isaiah and the later prophet Malachi.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

It reminds me daily that God’s word, the prophetic word, for me is that if people are going to encounter God’s love or hope in my particular day and circumstances – I am the one who is going to have to help facilitate that. I am the one preparing the way for the Lord.

Namaste is a Hindu greeting. It is often accompanied by a slight bow with hands held together. The word itself means something like, “I recognize the divine in you.”

It seems to me a form of the prayer from the Benedictus. If I recognize the divine in you, then perhaps you will be able to reciprocate. And together we will have done our part in preparing the way of the Lord.

advent-2-dec-4.md

Sun, Dec 4, 2016: St. Peter’s

Sermon second Advent:

lectionary

Last week I announced that I intended to preach on the Isaiah passage each of these weeks through Advent. Week by week we will hear from the prophet Isaiah. Each of the passages is famously associated with Christmas – going back centuries. A great danger for us, I believe, is to become more and more immune to hearing the true power of the message. My hope is to help in hearing the message of the gospel.

Today we hear from (ch. 11 of Isaiah) – stump of Jesse – the peaceable kingdom, the wolf and the lamb lie down together.

• Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you (Rom)
• Rom refers to Isaiah
• John the Baptist appears

Broad influence of Isaiah

When we listen to Handel’s Messiah passage after passage is taken from the prophet. It has been called “the Fifth Gospel”, and its influence extends beyond Christianity to English literature and to Western culture itself.

gathering of commentaries: (mostly old, open-source, Christian http://biblehub.com/commentaries/isaiah/11-1.htm

Who Isaiah talking to?

While it is widely accepted that Isaiah the prophet did not write the entire book, there are good reasons to see parts of chapters 1–39 as stemming from the historic Isaiah ben Amoz, who lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the reigns of four kings from the mid to late 8th century BCE. During this period, Assyria was expanding westward from its origins in modern-day northern Iraq towards the Mediterranean, destroying first Aram (modern Syria) in 734–732 BCE, then the Kingdom of Israel in 722–721, and finally subjugating Judah in 701. (Wikipedia) historical setting

• In the previous chapter Isaiah refers to the Assyrian king threatening the nation of Israel – that he would soon to fade away.

---

You Who Legislate Evil
10 1-4 Doom to you who legislate evil,
who make laws that make victims—
Laws that make misery for the poor,
that rob my destitute people of dignity,
Exploiting defenseless widows,
taking advantage of homeless children.
What will you have to say on Judgment Day,
when Doomsday arrives out of the blue?
Who will you get to help you?
What good will your money do you?
A sorry sight you’ll be then, huddled with the prisoners,
or just some corpses stacked in the street.
Even after all this, God is still angry,
his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.
Doom to Assyria!
5-11 “Doom to Assyria, weapon of my anger.
My wrath is a cudgel in his hands!
I send him against a godless nation,
against the people I’m angry with. (The Message)

At the same time Isaiah would live during the time of one of only 2 great and righteous kings in Israel and Judah – Hezekiah. And yet, the vision Isaiah has of a time to come goes beyond this righteous king. He is looking to some “time to come” – olam ha ba in the Hebrew.

Peaceable Kingdom

For myself, every time I encounter this passage, I think of the painting - Peaceable Kingdom by Edward HIcks. Edward Hicks (over 100 versions) Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends. He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings. (Wikipedia)

He portrayed an image of calm, breaking down the barriers, a new age of peace that fit his faith as a Quaker. Though I have never been to a Quaker meeting I have a deep sense of having experienced their waiting on the Spirit to speak. I know that the silence that we allow into our lives can often be life-changing and full of the Word of God. (Jim Kelsey and “High Church Quaker”)

It was clearly a deeply felt, personal image for him. It no doubt spoke to him of a vision of peace that was not at all present in the world around him – either in the church he believed in or the country he lived in. That would seem not to get in the way of it speaking equally powerfully to us – living in a very different age.

Isaiah, like Hicks, gives us a Messianic vision in the context of a message of hope for the world in which he lived.

The Messianic Age is a theological term referring to a future time of universal peace and brotherhood on the earth, without crime, war and poverty. Not just Christians, but Judaism before and Islam after believe that there will be such an age; some refer to it as the consummate “kingdom of God”, “paradise”, Peaceable Kingdom, or the “world to come”.

We might well say that Isaiah here is going beyond hope in political solutions and placing hope – our hope – in a Messianic time to come. But his hope is well-grounded in the time in which he lived.

Importance of spiritual empowerment of leader

What we can hear from Isaiah’s message – in the 8th c. bce directed at a a series of foreign leaders and corrupt and unjust leaders among his own people – is the vital nature of the leader of the people. The characteristics of the leader clearly make a difference whether God will unleash punishment or protection to the people.

Clearly he preached in the context of a culture that accepted a close relationship between the political leaders and the religious leaders. We do not share that presupposition. The whole combined message of the prophets of the Bible – Old Testament or New – is that the justice or righteousness of the political leaders mattered to the life of the nation and the people. “Where the shepherds are unjust, the people themselves will suffer.”

What shall we do with that message in our very different circumstances? Is this a message for our leaders? For the response that we ought to make to things happening in our nation?

Often the way the text is interpreted is that it anticipates a messianic age that was ushered in by Jesus of Nazareth. Christians, then, are the inheritors of the peaceable kingdom. Because we can see so clearly that this peaceful age has not been ushered in – I think we often don’t know what to do with it.

If we hear it rather as a message of hope to a world that strains under the weight of injustice and corruption as did ancient Israel – I think we must listen, pay attention, claim it The text begins to have power in every age. Not just the 8th c. bce – not just the 1st c. ce – not just in our own day. But indeed in our day.

Paul quoting from our passage

• playing with the word for “nations” or “gentiles” in his argument about the spread of the Gospel to non-Jews
• sending the over-riding message of hope

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Choose to Hope

Marty Haugen

Hope is born when we choose to believe
that love is stronger than hate.
Hope is born when our hearts learn to see
That every person is sacred

---

In the times of darkness, in times of fear,
Choose to hope, choose to love,
Emmanuel is near.

Share His Life

Advent 1

Advent 1: Nov. 27, 2016

St. Peter’s, Great Falls

---

Lectionary 

Listen to a portion of our first reading today:

excerpt Isaiah

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
…
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!

---

Our second reading invites us to “wake from our sleep” – to be alert to God’s work around us
and the Gospel urges us to prepared for the “Son of man coming at an unexpected hour”

4 Sundays hearing from Isaiah:

What I plan to do for the next 4 weeks is to prepare for Christmas through Advent by listening to the prophet Isaiah.
This week: Mountain of the Lord, swords into plowshares
Next week: a shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse
3rd week: make straight a highway
4th week: sign of Immanuel

Why Prophets as a theme for Advent?

The primary reason to focus on the prophets – Isaiah in this case – is that we may be able to hear God speaking to us in a fresh way, a voice we don’t usually listen to. Furthermore, I believe that we live in prophetic times – even apocalyptic times.
The characteristics of the biblical prophets include these:
many varieties of prophets
did more than just “preach”
they communicated God’s message for the people. They were an intermediary between God and God’s people.
their actions were often as powerful as the words (n.b. the opening of our reading today: “The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.“
there were 100’s of prophets – most of whom don’t have a name
there were women as well as men
they were in the center of the politics of their day
the writings that we have preserved in our text today are often in the form of poetry

A prophet is for most Christians:

Incontrast, I think that most Christians hear the prophets primarily as someone who tells the future. What the old testament calls a soothsayer and that the telling of the future is primarily focused on fore-telling the coming of Christ.
Now it’s not surprising that that would be the most usual way for Christians to hear the prophets because that is the primary way that the New Testament treats “prophecies”.
But if we listen to them on their own terms – not in service to the New Testament – we may be able to hear God speak to us in fresh ways. That is what the prophets did in their own day.

Prophets: “speaking truth to power”

One recent way to describe prophetic speech is to call it speaking truth to power.
This was a phrase that was perhaps coined by the Quakers during the mid-1950s. It was a call for the United States to stand firm against fascism and other forms of totalitarianism;
It is possible that it was coined somewhat earlier by civil rights worker.
Those four little words comprise a powerful expression.
“It is a powerful nonviolent challenge to injustice and unbridled totalitarian forces, often perpetuated by government, sometimes not,” says Judith Sherwin (Attorney at Law, Adjunct Professor, Loyola School of Law). “Sir Thomas More did it at the cost of his life when he spoke truth to power against King Henry VIII; Martin Luther King Jr. did it at the cost of his freedom when he ended up in the Birmingham jail and eventually at the cost of his life.” Huff. Post

Isaiah the prophet in particular

The voice in the book we have today comes from 3 very different circumstances. The first was when the nation was threatened with destruction by the Assyrians – but all that happened was that ½ of it was destroyed. Another voice 150 years – coming from a disciple of the first Isaiah, spoke and wrote at a time when the nation was again threatened, and this time destroyed. for good – at least until 1949. A third voice wrote some 50-150 years later and wrote of a new way of experiencing and knowing God – now as the God of all creation, not just of the Israelites.
Other than the psalms, the most quoted book of OT in the NT is Isaiah. It was primarily used in the context of “fulfillment” – as I have said.

the Mountain of the Lord

In today’s passage we hear about the mountain of the Lord. This is Jerusalem. Mt. Zion. Where the temple stood. The house of God as it were. Isaiah invites us up. I have had experiences like that with mountains, both in Colorado and in Hawai’i. Especially in Hawai’i I experienced them as in some way the special domain of God. Meant to be kept sacred. Meant to be visited with reverence.
Over the centuries the mountain of the Lord has been a metaphor for the hard work needed for advancement in the spiritual life. To ascend the mountain was to encounter God not just in his own place – but to be transformed by the encounter. Moses was encountered on such a mountain. Jesus was transfigured on a mountain. And he preached – at least as Matthew presents it – on a “mountain.”
So in some sense God seems to be saying “it is hard work. Persevere. Be ready. We do not know the hour.”
Be a people of peace.
Be a people of justice
Be a people of mercy
– even as God himself brings you peace and justice and mercy.
And we will listen more next week to what the prophet says to us.

November Thanksgiving St. Paul's

Church

Sun, Nov 20, 2016 St. Paul's

lectionary

• make us good stewards
• provide for us
• a wandering Aramean was my ancestor
• rejoice in the Lord always
• whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
• I am the bread of life

What we "ought" to do

At a young age I remember being taught that I ought to be grateful -- for any number of things. I ought to write thank you notes. I ought to appreciate all that my parents -- or teachers -- or ?? did for me.
For the most part I don't think it worked very well.
On the other hand, I am curious to figure out when did I learn actually become grateful? At what point did I exercise gratitude?

Being grateful

It had to be connected with receiving a gift and knowing that I didn't somehow deserve it. Had earned it or it belonged to me.
When I got good grades I figured I had worked for them. When I got them without working for them -- English honors in senior year -- I just figured it was something like good luck.
Being lucky isn't really related to gratitude.
Possibly it was when my first born was raised above our heads by the delivering physician and he asked me what his name was? I cried uncontrollably.
Perhaps it was a little earlier when I was rock climbing and fell. I was caught:

• my friend held the rope
• the piton held in the rock
• the rope held

Perhaps it was the day I received a cash gift at seminary. Someone had known that our family was in need of money, perhaps because of the birth of our second child, I don't remember. But I can still vividly remember the moment I opened the unmarked envelope I had just picked up at the campus post office. In it was a bundle of cash. No note. No way to send a thank you note. The only thing to do was to be grateful.

It was quite a bit later in life that I learned about a teaching of the Rabbis -- the goal of offering 100 blessings / day

Question: I once heard that there is a certain amount of blessings we should attempt to say each day. How many is it, and what is the source of this idea?
Answer: There is indeed such a teaching. We are to recite 100 blessings each day. The Talmud1 extrapolates this from a verse in Deuteronomy:2 "Now, Israel, what does G‑d, your G‑d, ask of you? . . . to walk in His ways . . . and to serve Him."

The Hebrew word for "what," mah (מָה), is phonetically similar to the word me'ah (מֵאָה), which means 100. In other words, the verse can be understood as saying: "Now, Israel, a hundred does G‑d, your G‑d, ask of you"—one hundred blessings.
chabad.org

Guides

• thanking someone who doesn't usually get thanks
• Know the value of small things
• learn the value of giving thanks for small things
• Cultivate being grateful
• make it a minimum goal to offer it 100 times in a day

There are countless articles out there touting the value of gratitude. But is that really what's going on here? Is it -- this is good for you -- ?

That's not the reason for doing it.

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." -- Oprah Winfrey

Habakkuk: giving thanks even when the fig tree withers

3:17 Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. 19 God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights. To the leader: with stringed instruments.

"Sing as if no one can hear; dance as if no one is watching; dream as if there are no impossibilities" (Annie)
"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." - Meister Eckhart

End of Church year -- begin of new

• This Sunday is the last of the church year
• gift of last 50 years, that we get to hear from each of the gospels over a 3 year cycle -- this next year gospel of Matthew
• Like other "new years", it gives us a chance to look back and take stock and to gird our loins for the upcoming year. or
• For all that has been, Thank you. For all that is to come, Yes! Dag Hammarskjold

11-13-sermon-st-pauls.md

Church

Sun, Nov 13, 2016: St. Paul’s

lectionary

Holy Scripture written for us
I shall build a new Heavens – focus on Jerusalem – no more the sound of weeping
the wolf and the lamb shall lie down together
the stones of the temple thrown down – when you hear of wars and resurrection – nation will rise against nation
they will arrest you

The Bible and the Times

“This past week has been an emotional and turbulent one for many people in our nation.”
We had an election last week. … you probably noticed.
Perhaps the greatest 20^th^ c. theologians, Karl Barth, said that sermons should be written with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. He came to that conclusion after watching his German Evangelical Church first support the Kaiser in his war-making effort in the 1^st^ World War and then much more alarmingly support the rise of Adolph Hitler.
The events of the past week require me to look at the Bible and the newspaper at the same time. And I’m not particularly comfortable doing it. What the newspaper (and all the other venues for news) tell us connected to the political events of the American election of the past week. I have been so cautious my whole ministry to avoid even the appearance of partisan politics in my church speech and actions.
I recognize that the church is “church” for all people, whatever their political persuasion. I recognize that Christ died for all people.
The results of my reading of the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other, however, convinces me that we live in radical times. One of the results of the election I read about in the newspaper is that there have been a number of racist and violent messages in a number of communities. I read that many of our citizens are fearful of what is to come after the pronouncements of the political campaign that we have just witnessed. There have been a number of protests to the election throughout the country. I wonder if there has ever been anything similar in the history of our country?
It convinces me that the message for the church cannot be “business as usual.”

Our times have become exceptional times

• apocalyptic times – like we hear of in the gospel today.

The eschatological images fit the time we live in.

• “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”

The world we live in is filled with unfathomable images, trends and trajectories, hopes and despairs that seem beyond speaking.

• 9/11
• the melting of the ice caps
• warfare fought in the middle east with ferocity and frenzy that seems to come from a world gone by
• But such events have been occurring with regularity throughout Christian History:
• The sack of Jerusalem, expulsion of Jews from Judea
• Nero blaming all his troubles on the Christians in Rome
• Justin Martyr and countless others marched to an amphitheater to be killed by lions.
• The destruction of Rome within a century of it becoming a “Christian” city
• The murder and destruction of Jews, Muslims and Arab Christians at time of the crusades
• the Black Plague when ½ the population of Europe died
• the wars of religion throughout Europe
• 20th c. wars
• the Holocaust, and genocides of the 20th c.

… for example, the matter of deaths caused by war: in the 18th century, about 4 million people died in wars; in the 19th century, about 8 million people died in wars; in the 20th century, nearly 100 million people died in wars.

The end times: what is its meaning?

Apocalyptic literature was and continues to this day to be written for the encouragement of those who experience persecution or destruction. It is intended to convey the message that the ruins about us are not God’s final answer.
We, the church, must reflect God’s answer. It is not the case that things will inevitably get better and better for our country or the world. One person said:

There is no biblical basis for a hope in inevitable progress. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that things will gradually get better until at last the kingdom is present, and in fact it is closer to the biblical truth to say that things will get worse before they get better. 1

At the same time, the Bible could not be clearer that we are responsible for our end of things. Bp. Desmond Tutu once put it in the most succinct way possible: God has made us responsible for His reputation.

Exceptional demands are upon us

We are at this moment a nation deeply divided upon itself.
When Luke said of Jesus (back in ch. 11 of Luke) But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house.” he wasn’t talking about politics. He was talking about the Kingdom of God vs. the Kingdom of this World.
What would Jesus do about the division in our country?

“What would Jesus do?”

What would he do about the more than ½ of our nation that feels themselves to be under threat from the President elect?

How can we be responsible for God’s reputation in these times?

I am not presuming to tell you the answer to the questions I pose, but I think the times demand an answer from us.

Not to answer is itself an answer.
An expository article from Interpretation 1982. “It can be said that Christian life is placed between history and eternity. It takes part, on the one hand, in the history of the world within which it exercises its faith; and it participates, on the other hand, in the power of the resurrection as the token of the new world toward which it is straining.
This reminds us that the events of the last week – as polarizing and shocking as they were (no matter your allegiance) – is but the perspective from this side of the Resurrection where God made us responsible for His reputation.

---

1. St. Louis commentary: ↩

Nov. 6 -- All Saints Sunday

Nov. 6 (All Saints Sunday)

lectionary

Haggai – Thessalonians

Again we hear from a prophet whose name comes with many different pronunciations. My teacher enforcing the British pronunciation made us say “Hay’-gay-ai”.
As I previewed the passage last week, I smiled because it was a perfect example text for my Old Testament class. The timing was perfect – In the second year of King Darius,… . The prophet looks back at a nation, a religious faith, a way of life, an extended family – that had been utterly destroyed. He looks and sees a time to come: “Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts.”
Remembering the past glory, promising a coming splendor and glory
Second coming, delay of parousia
Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”
Haggai the prophet’s words may help us to look out and see the glory of the Lord that is all around us.

The coming splendour

Mother T. saw it in the slums of Calcutta
I felt it when Pres. Obama led the nation (as it were) in singing “Amazing Grace” at the memorial service at Mother Immanuel in Charleston.
I saw it in the short video we shared on Facebook, a woman catching a cab in New York, in response to the question where to? she said anywhere. Explaining that she was on her way to the hospice and she wanted to see the living world one last time.
This is available anywhere
it doesn’t need a successful church program
a church that has genuinely prayed in provides it
I was in such a church somewhere off a small road in the woods, built in early 1700’s right here in South Carolina.

After the storm, a song, Google it, Haggai starter

irish band
… (end)
And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
After the Storm is a story about that emergence – a story of people encountering a new world, encountering loss, and then learning how to keep going.

All the saints, gone before, have prepared the way for us to see the splendour

so that we can see
“Nana” remember the student conversation in Old Testament where she wanted to tell me about the great faith of her nah nah. When I sought to confirm what I was hearing she just repeated na na expecting me to know perfectly well who I was she was talking about. The point about na na was that she quote probably had lots more faith than the student does. But was clearly a wise person for the student. If it hadn’t been class I might have pursued the notion of her being a saint.
each of you has your own personal “Nana”
This community has its own
we give thanks today for all the saints who have prepared the way for our eyes and hearts to be open to the splendour before and on its way
After the storm
We have endured a storm in this country and indeed the world:
Change in us, region, world
This is not the church I grew up in
Declining communities
Tornado, flood, earthquake - my mother’s word - seeing the ruin. The promise of rebuilding.
Freshness of the smell, clean, no asthma.
I can remember my mother promising to us kids, growing up in Denver suburb, that we were safe from those things that children fear: floods, earthquakes, tornadoes.
After the flood of 1965 a large recreational lake appeared behind the dam to control the South Platte. I have a good friend who lives near there. After the earthquakes – that were man-made – Denver International Airport was built on the reclaimed land. The Tornadoes – well, I’m not sure. But I do know that everytime there’s a fiersome thunderstorm, the air seems to be clean, the dry ground watered, and there is a promise of new life.
wonder of life itself
oldest living man @ 113 is a survivor of the Holocaust – he witnessed the ruin, now a sign of the splendour of the living God
st. Louis rolheiser
Gospel lends itself to a message about resurrection, about life after death,
the communion of the saints is a shorthand for the community of all those alive in the resurrection

Elizabeth Johnson, leaning on Karl Rahner, adds this thought: “Hoping against hope, we affirm that they [our loved ones who have died] have fallen not into nothingness but into the embrace of the living God. And that is where we can find them again; when we open our hearts to the silent calmness of God’s own life in which we dwell, not by selfishly calling them back to where we are, but by descending into the depth of our own hearts where God also abides.”

These are the saints we remember. It is on their shoulders that we stand. Because of them we are granted the privilege of seeing the splendour around us and awaiting the glory that is to come.

Sermon 10-23

Introductory

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

• Then afterward
  I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
  your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
  your old men shall dream dreams,
  and your young men shall see visions.
• I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
• Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:
• ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Parable

Once again we hear a parable from Jesus about prayer. He has told us about 2 men who pray to God – one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The one is satisfied with himself. The other is keenly aware of his many short-comings.
You may remember the principle I mentioned last time about trying to decide where we identify ourselves in the parables. Who do we naturally identify with as we listen?
In this case my hunch is that we don’t so much identify with the tax-collector as we say to ourselves, “Well, at least I’m not like the Pharisee!”
Our natural place is to feel pretty good about ourselves, isn’t it? And honestly it’s not without some good reason. Each of us has found our way to this moment, this morning, by way of much searching and discovery, looking for God in all kinds of places, finding evidence in sometimes surprising places – each of us feels ok with the way we approach God.
Probably each of us has a time – or times – in our life when we would have just come right out and identified with the tax-collector, aware of our own short-comings, not expecting anything from God except judgment, and pleading for mercy.
Another part of my suggestions to folks about reading the parables is to ask ourselves where we place God in them.
In today’s example, we tend to see God above the whole story, watching us to see what we’re thinking. We place God with the voice of Jesus in the opening line that explains what the parable is about:
Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:
We read that and we think, “Well, I know what this parable is about. Whew. Now on to the next thing.”
That little verse at the beginning of the reading – the camera is on Jesus, explaining what the parable is about. But that’s not really what it is. Jesus’ voice is to be found in the parable. In the story itself. The opening voice is the gospel writer, telling us what’s about to happen – like a stage script, describing the next scene in a play or movie.
What I want to say this morning about parables, in addition to what I’ve said before, is that Jesus’ parables are almost never about teaching us something. they are about getting us to take some action, to make some change in our lives.
This is a principle of interpreting Jesus’ parables that was first clearly identified about 80 years ago or so. But it is a principle that I think has always been known. But we have to relearn it over and over again.
If we think this parable is here so that we can say to ourselves, “Ok, I’m not supposed to be hypocritical and I’m supposed to be more like the guy who pleads for mercy.” – “Ok, I’ve got it.” then we have missed it.

Two Kinds of People

e.g. 2 kinds of people: is not about learning something – though there are things to learn about that

• It is about looking at myself, am I someone who divides the world into those who agree with me, look like me, think like me, … and everyone else. Or do I see everyone as human.
• It’s meant to change the world – a little story.

Knowing who we are before the Lord

Humility is the remedy

Many centuries ago great ones in the church recognized that the basic path to the kind of self-awareness and inner change that the gospel is about – was in the path of humility.
Steps of humility:
Christianity Today and cf. bernard of clairvaux
(1)fear of the Lord
(2)renunciation of self-will
(3)obedience to the superior in imitation of Christ
(4)patience and equanimity in difficulties
(5)self-revelation
(6)contentment with the least
(7)awareness of one’s own liabilities
(8)avoidance of individualistic and self-seeking behavior
(9)radical restraint of speech
(10) avoidance of laughter
(11) gravity of speech
(12) humility manifest in all facets of life
Humility is required for Self-awareness and self-knowledge – knowing who we are (and aren’t)
Humility is not something highly valued in our society.
Silence valued over sound – can you imagine?
St. Bernard 1,000 years ago outlined the steps of humility for defeating the exalted mountain we call Pride – the queen of sin.
Lesson from Colorado Mountain Club: Leave the mountains in the same condition it was in when you entered.
These were mountain men kind of folks. They weren’t wimps.
Humility could be that kind of story

The tax collector does not claim to know as much about God as the Pharisee knows, but the tax collector at least knows who is who. He knows he cannot grant mercy upon himself and that no comparison to others will ever wipe his slate clean. He knows who is God and who is not, who is the subject and who is the object. Jesus says, to learn who is who will not diminish our importance but exalt us to our rightful position. No longer the subject of our own prayers, or the granter of our own grace, we can be the humble recipient of God’s.

By: Kayla McClurg (Inward/Outward)

in God’s presence (even here)

Humility allows us to know ourselves in the presence of God. – Now that’s a humbling thing to think about. But it’s exactly what we claim by standing, sitting in this room today.
Annie Dillard:

There is one church here, so I go to it. On Sunday mornings I quit the house and wander down the hill to the white frame church in the firs. On a big Sunday there might be twenty of us there; often I am the only person under sixty, and feel as though I’m on an archaeological tour of Soviet Russia. The members are of mixed denominations; the minister is a Congregationalist, and wears a white shirt. The man knows God. Once, in the middle of the long pastoral prayer of intercession for the whole world–for the gift of wisdom to its leaders, for hope and mercy to the grieving and pained, succor to the oppressed, and God’s grace to all–in the middle of this he stopped, and burst out, “Lord, we bring you these same petitions every week.” After a shocked pause, he continued reading the prayer. Because of this, I like him very much. “Good morning!” he says after the first hymn and invocation, startling me witless every time, and we all shout back, “Good morning!” …
The higher Christian churches–where, if anywhere, I belong–come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it any minute. This is the beginning of wisdom.

–Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (Harper & Row, 1977)
Thanks be to God that